Morning's Golden Light
by XV
Summary: : A song fic that seemed to spring fully formed from my mind as I listened to an Enya song today…while I was busy working on a completely different, Mirandy, fanfic. It grabbed me, wouldn't let go and demanded to be written. You can listen to the song here: www Dot youtube Dot com/watch?v GJgbzEGAvzc.
1. Chapter 1

**Morning's Golden Light**

_**A/N 1:**__ A song fic that seemed to spring fully formed from my mind as I listened to an Enya song today…while I was busy working on a completely different, Mirandy, fanfic. It grabbed me, wouldn't let go and demanded to be written. You can listen to the song here: watch?v=GJgbzEGAvzc_

_**A/N 2:**__ I stopped actually watching OUaT about middle of season 2. My knowledge of anything after that is parsed together entirely from fanfic, manips and discussions on Tumblr. With that in mind it might be best to see this as an AU fic veering away from the show at that point but spiced with details from later on._

_**Disclaimer:**__ Nothing is mine; I make no money from my scribbles. Go on and sue me if you must, I'll enjoy reading femslash out loud in court just to show TPTB how it should be done._

The scream was long, loud and the pure essence of human terror, anger and anguish as it carried through the air very effectively waking one Sheriff Emma Swan. The blonde woman bolted up from her supine position on what she believed was her own comfortable bed only to discover herself standing in a dark and ominous wooded glade, a large pile of dry and dead leaves at her feet. The cry broke forth once more, its poignant terror striking the very marrow of Emma's bones as she cringed in sympathetic horror. She blinked and tried to gather her scattered wits as the cries continued to echo around her.

The confused woman looked down and saw that she was barefoot and clad in what she remembered going to bed wearing, just her tank top and boy shorts. A gust of cold wind made her shiver as she tried to press herself against the large trunk of the nearest tree to get away from its' icy fingers. Feeling the bark, rough against her skin, she heard the cry once again barely making out the strangled words of '_no'_ and '_please'_ amid the baser animal sounds of pain.

"God damned fucking magic!" She mumbled as she tried to work out where she was and just what the hell was happening this time in the magic benighted town of Storybrooke. Her suspicions immediately flitted to Gold, wondering what the Dark One might be up to now, that Regina herself might be involved in anyway didn't enter her mind at all.

The desperate cries were now almost constant and Emma stood very still listening carefully and struggling against her visceral wish to block out the distressing sounds so that she could try and pinpoint from which direction the cries were originating. After a minute or two she cautiously headed off, walking slowly, taking shelter from tree to tree and moving as quietly as her chattering teeth would allow she followed the cries which grew louder and more desperate as she moved toward them.

More than ten minutes of stealthy movement brought her to a thick stand of trees growing nearly trunk to trunk as if deliberately planted to be a fence shielding the clearing she could just make out beyond the woody barrier. The tearing cries had morphed into tortured whimpers and sobs as she'd neared this final stand of trees and continued as such punctuated still by pitiful statements of apology and pleas for forgiveness. She continued to search for a larger gap that might let her see better what lay in the clearing. It took a few more minutes for the blonde to find a gap large enough to look through and what she saw had her gasping in surprise and recognition.

In the centre of a circular clearing was a large bed, shaped almost like a divan with a large padded headboard rising up and curling backward, the whole illuminated in silver moonlight. The incongruity of a fancy bed in the middle of a forest clearing accounted for Emma's surprise, but it was the dark haired female figure writhing and thrashing in the middle of the bed that had been the cause of her startled cry of recognition.

"Regina!"

Even as the name left her lips the brunette on the bed sat bolt upright eyes wide open but unfocused she screamed in anguish.

"Henry, No!"

The name of her son ringing in her ears the clearing disappeared even as Emma felt herself falling backward landing with a grunt of pain she shook her head and blinked until her vision returned. Completely disoriented, it took her a few seconds to recognize that she was sprawled on the floor of her own bedroom and breathing hard as if she'd just run a marathon. Struggling in the tangle of sheets she'd dragged down with her she managed to twist round to lean back against the side of her bed and ran her fingers through her dishevelled blonde curls.

"Fucking hell! It was a dream. Just a dream."

Emma scrubbed her face with her hands trying to get rid of the feelings of fear and terror the dream had left behind, repeating over again that it had been nothing more than a product of her nocturnal subconscious. Speaking the thought out loud to the empty room seemed to ground her and distance her from the distress the dream embodied.

Calming eventually she glanced at her alarm clock noting that it was just after 5am, grumblingly she dragged herself up and went to take a shower, she knew she'd never get back to sleep so decided she might as well start her day. She noted that the sun was streaming in around her curtains so didn't bother to turn the light on as she exited the room and headed for the bathroom.

Six days later Emma dragged her tired body into the Sheriff's station just after 7am and relieved her father from the nightshift. She tossed her empty coffee cup, bought from Granny's less than 15 minutes earlier, in the bin with one hand and accepted the large mug presented to her as a morning greeting from her father with the other hand. She brought the mug immediately to her lips and took a long sip of the strong Kenyan blend she'd bought for the station.

"Thanks Dad. I think I'm gonna need a couple gallons of this today, just to stay upright. I sure as hell hope it's a quiet day." She slumped in her chair and took another sip before she placed the mug on her desk.

James chuckled and patted her shoulder in sympathy.

"Still not sleeping well huh?"

"I feel like I haven't slept a wink for a month. I mean I know I'm sleeping, because I'm dreaming, but the dreams are just so real it's like I've been trekking in the woods the whole night and I wake up more exhausted each morning."

Her father yawned and gave a sheepish grin in response to Emma's glare in his direction before throwing his jacket on. His daughter had told him about the dreams two days ago, leaving out any mention of the former Evil Queen, when she'd asked if he and Snow would have Henry for the night so she could feel safe taking a sleeping pill to try and get a dreamless night's sleep. Although her parents had accommodated her readily enough the plan had failed spectacularly and she'd woken up after another vivid dream feeling even more tired than usual.

"Sorry Sweetie, but I have been up all night and it's time for me to catch a few winks." He bent and kissed the top of her head.

"Hope the day is easy, call me if you need me, if not I'll see you tonight. Maybe if you had some herbal tea before bed tonight it might help you sleep easier." With that somewhat innocuous advice he went on his way.

Instinctively she reached again for her caffeine fix, swallowing several times before putting the mug back down. She'd had the same dream for six nights running. It started, as near as she could guess, the minute she laid her head on the pillow and ended every morning just after sunrise with her waking suddenly on the floor beside her bed. The only detail that had varied in any of the dreams had been the clothes she was wearing, each dream accurately dressing her in the different sleep-ware she collapsed in on that night. The memory of the biting wind had caused her to dress for the dream on the third night when she opted for a sweat shirt and sweatpants, not that she'd noticed any particular improvement in the temperature in that night's dream.

Later that morning as she refilled her mug for the fifth time, she suddenly wondered if her dismissal of it just being an annoying recurring dream was maybe a little bit naïve of her given that magic now regularly ran rampant in the little town. Maybe there was more to it than her subconscious trying to work through something. Not that she thought Regina was being held captive in the forest somewhere, she'd seen the Mayor out and about town almost every day, and Henry had stayed with his adoptive mother on the first two of her dream haunted nights, but that didn't mean there wasn't something more to the dreams, something possibly magical.

The more Emma thought about it the more she thought she was on to something, but she needed to ask someone who knew about magic before she could be sure. Trouble was she was loathe to ask Regina because she wasn't willing to mention the Mayor's starring role to the woman herself, and because she just knew the infuriating brunette would refuse any kind of answer the second she realised Emma wasn't telling her every detail about the dream. Emma didn't kid herself that she could manage to mention the dreams and keep that little detail to herself, the fact was that Regina seemed to have accrued a little bit of Emma's lie detector super-power, at least where Henry and the Sheriff were concerned. She was also leery about approaching Gold for any kind of help because she had no intention of making any kind of deal with him ever again and she didn't trust him as far she could wriggle her eyebrows. Technically she supposed that left the Blue Fairy as the only other well-known magic wielder in town with whom she could consult. Truth be told though, she didn't really trust the secretive Fairy much more than she did Gold, there was just something about the creature that made the hairs on her neck prickle.

A sudden very audible growl of her stomach made her glance at the clock and seeing it was nearing 2pm she decided to head on over to Granny's for something to eat. Maybe she could pick Ruby's brains about the dreams, the woman may not actually practice magic but she had a hell of a lot more experience with it than Emma and she was a magical creature herself, so maybe she might have some light to shed on the subject. Decision made Emma headed out the door grabbing her jacket as she went.


	2. Chapter 2

**Morning's Golden Light **

**Part Two**

_**A/N 1:**__ A song fic that seemed to spring fully formed from my mind as I listened to an Enya song today…while I was busy working on a completely different, Mirandy, fanfic. It grabbed me, wouldn't let go and demanded to be written. You can listen to the song here: watch?v=GJgbzEGAvzc_

_**A/N 2:**__ Oops! I thought this story was only going to have two parts, but it just seems to keep writing itself, so it will definitely be at least three parts. My Bad._

Emma made her way to the diner her pace slow her mind wandering to her dreams yet again, trying to figure out what they might mean. She'd already figured that part of it was probably what her subconscious was thinking Regina might be suffering as the older woman dealt with the demons of her past and her concerted effort to stay on the side of good for their son's sake. Emma could certainly empathise with the strain that would put on Regina, being all too familiar with dealing with the stress of her own demons that demanded she run at the first sign of trouble and her not wanting to disappoint Henry by giving in to them.

The diner's bell rang when Emma pushed the door to enter the busy interior. She noted almost every table was taken, the lunch rush apparently having extended far beyond the normal 12-2 slot that any other diner experienced. The blonde shook her head as she immediately attributed this aberration to the inability of most of the townspeople to tell time. Snorting at her less than charitable thoughts she made her way toward the booth at the back, the one usually reserved for Ruby and the other diner staff to rest during their breaks. Ruby was just coming out from behind the counter carrying four plates of food and Emma jumped out of her way mid greeting.

"Hey Rubes. No rush for me, I'm gonna crash in your booth, leave me till you get a breather okay?"

Ruby dropped off the food to various customers and waved Emma off to the back of the restaurant with a clipped acknowledgement before she hurried back behind the counter for the next orders. Emma dropped into the booth and slid to the back where she could rest her head against the wall and the back of the booth. Unsurprisingly, she was asleep the second her head hit the padded back of the seat. Almost 20 minutes later Ruby dumped two cups of coffee on the table and slumped down in the seat opposite Emma, snorting as she heard the soft snoring emanating from the sound asleep blonde. The tall brunette gave a wolfish grin and spoke loud enough to rouse the other woman but not for prying ears to hear.

"Hi Regina, our Sherriff sure snores up a storm doesn't she?"

Emma sat up immediately having registered the Mayor's name and woke up mid-snore almost choking herself in the process trying to gather her sleepy wits.

"Whaa..Regina..I…"

Emma blinked as she looked for the nightly subject of her dreams, but saw only a chuckling Ruby who quickly pushed the steaming mug of coffee toward the blonde. The blonde scowled at the woman opposite her but accepted the coffee and took the time to take a healthy swig as she surveyed the now considerably emptier diner. Ruby sipped from her own mug allowing Emma a minute to wake up.

"Em, you look like crap girl, what's up with you?"

"Gee thanks for the pep talk Rubes, remind me to be as honest the next time I see you stumbling out of the Rabbit Hole at 3am."

Emma took another sip of her caffeine juice and smoothed her hair back with her free hand.

"Actually, the reason I look like shit is what I wanted to talk to you about. I've hardly had any sleep now for almost a week, and when I do manage to get to sleep I keep having this really disturbing recurring dream."

After swearing Ruby to secrecy about the details of the dream, insisting in particular she keep the subject of the dream from her parents in particular, Emma described her dream in detail and shared her hypothesis that it might be magical in nature, especially as it seemed to be evolving slightly each night.

"Other than the vividness of the dream what makes you think it's magical?"

"Well, there's the nightly change of the clothes I'm wearing in the dream that matches whatever I've gone to sleep in that night. I mean I suppose that might just be my subconscious being really on the ball, but I honestly don't think that's the case, and then there's the details of the wood, it's always exactly the same, every tree location, size, type, I swear it's a real place that I'm actually visiting."

Emma paused, she was a little unsure about sharing her next thoughts, but decided to go for broke and share her latest theory with Ruby.

"Rubes, I think, I mean I was wondering if I might be… Do you think it's possible to end up in someone else's dream?"

"Em, we live in the same town as the former Evil Queen and the Dark One, a town that only exists because it was magicked here by a curse. So, I'd say something as simple as dropping into someone else's dreams would be a walk in the park. Whose dream do you think you're in?"

Emma thought Ruby was being a bit slow on the uptake given the details she'd shared with the brunette, she thought it was pretty obvious whose dream she was invading every night.

"I think it might be Regina's. The kid mentioned he thought his mom wasn't sleeping well recently and she's the only other person in the dream. I can kind of imagine she might have dreams like this too, she does call out her mother's name a lot and that woman was all kinds of nightmares."

"Umm, if you think it's Regina's dream that you're joining, can't you switch shifts with David and try sleeping during the day when Regina is actually awake?"

Ruby's suggestion barely made it past her lips before it was met by her friends golden curls emphasising her negatively shaking head.

"Tried that three days ago, stayed up all night and tried to grab some sleep in the afternoon, but it didn't work, I still woke up totally exhausted. I landed in the forest but the rest of the dream was different, in fact that's what convinced me this is definitely connected to Regina. Like I said I was in the forest again, but this time it was completely silent, not a single sound, not even the wind. It looked and felt like it was still night, only this time I noticed there weren't any stars overhead. I hunted for the clearing and found it, the bed was there but Regina wasn't. The really creepy thing was that the clearing was full of strange dark grey fog shapes that seemed to be circling and crawling all over the bed."

"Fog shapes? What kind of shapes?"

"Shapes like, well like ghosts I guess, sort of vaguely human, at least from head to waist, they all seemed to taper off below that, like I said, creepy." She shivered a little at the memory.

"And you've not seen these fog people in the clearing before?"

"No, at least I don't think so, but I never get to look into the clearing for very long before Regina screams and I wake up, and when I'm first looking I'm concentrating on Regina in the bed anyway."

Ruby ducked her head to hide a knowing smile quite sure her friend wasn't aware of the wistful, almost longing tone her voice had dropped into as she mentioned the mayor's name. The blonde pushed her nearly empty mug around the table, not looking up until Ruby asked another question.

"So have you managed to circle the whole clearing? You definitely haven't missed an opening somewhere that might let you get into the clearing and maybe help Regina. "

"I've definitely been all the way round the clearing, almost all the trees are huge pines and oaks and elms set so close together the trunks touch and the branches form a woven wall. There are two places however where there's a couple of saplings planted between two older trees, that's where I was able to see into the clearing, but even they are so close together there's no way I can squeeze past them."

Emma paused and looked around before she reached for the top button of her shirt and opened the third button down before pushing the fabric aside to reveal a small scratch just above her left clavicle.

"In last night's dream I found the gap between a huge tree and the much younger sapling and I tried to push the smaller tree to the side. I lost my grip and some branches whipped back into my face and chest, I felt the sting on my chest and it woke me up before I'd seen Regina. I looked down to see this scratch which was still bleeding at the time. That's got to mean there's some magical crap going on dontcha think?"

"Well, it still might not be magical, I mean you might have scratched yourself with a finger nail and that was what woke you up."

Emma shook her head at the suggestion.

"I thought that myself but the scratch was bleeding pretty hard and there was no blood on any of my fingers, so I don't think that's what happened. Like I said, this feels like a real place, not a dream at all. I wonder, I wonder if it's something like the place Snow and Henry told me about, the one where people who've been under a sleeping curse go to sometimes when they dream?"

Emma sat up a little straighter, suddenly hopeful she was onto something that might prove to be useful after a week of dead ends.

"Henry even said he came out of one of those dreams with a burn on his wrist from the fire that was raging in the room he was in with Aurora and Snow. Just like this scratch." She ran a finger over the broken skin, even more convinced she was right about the similarity of her dream to the otherworld Henry and Snow had described.

Faced with these new pieces of information, Ruby reluctantly admitted that it did look like there was something magical occurring with Emma's dreams. They both lapsed into a thoughtful silence while they finished their coffees and tried to come up with an idea that might help Emma. Suddenly Ruby sat up and leaned forward, the detail of Emma's changing clothes in the dream had given her an idea.

"What if you tried falling asleep with something that you could use to get past the saplings."

Emma blinked at her and gave a derisive snort.

"You want me to go to bed with a chainsaw? What would that do except help me cut my own legs to ribbons. Anyway how is that supposed to help me in the dream?"

Ruby rolled her eyes at Emma's obtuseness and a little at her derision.

"It doesn't have to be a chainsaw Em, sheesh! I was thinking if it's saplings you're dealing with, maybe an axe or a saw or even a hatchet might work. And I was thinking if you fell asleep holding it or with it attached to your wrist then it might show up in your dream, like your warmer clothes did."

Emma sat back and mulled the idea over, she could see Ruby's reasoning easily enough but still wasn't sure it would actually work, and she really wasn't keen to share a bed with an edged weapon of any kind, she was klutzy enough wide awake and vertical, she figured asleep and horizontal she'd end up chopping off one or both of her legs.

Ruby seemed to guess where Emma's thoughts had wandered when she shook her head at the woman who had obviously never had to chop wood for a fire in her life. Not for the first time the wolf thought how obvious it was that, birth notwithstanding, Emma was definitely a child of this world and not the Enchanted Forest.

"Uh Em, you can put a leather guard on an axe or hatchet so you won't slice a toe off," The brunette gave a chuckle. "or anything else for that matter."

Ruby's chuckle turned into a full blown laugh at Emma's self-conscious blush and she reached over and patted her hand reassuringly.

"I'm off at six tonight, you can swing past the Inn sometime after seven and pick up our hatchet."

"Okay Rubes, I suppose it's worth a try, I'll see you later then."

Emma slid out of the booth and headed for the entrance, a little more spring in her step than when she had arrived. She was still beyond tired, but having a plan in place gave her new hope that she might be able to solve this problem and finally get some much needed sleep.


End file.
